As days lengthen and temperatures climb, it is common to find a few insects bumbling around the house, looking for a way outdoors. Red-and-black boxelder bugs, orange Asian lady-beetles, and gray, slow-moving western conifer seed bugs are but a few of the critters likely to seek a protected, rent-free shelter in the fall and then forget where the exits are come spring. Fortunately, these are harmless as well as clueless, and do not breed indoors or pose health risks.

Asian ladybeetle.

Warm weather can also bring carpenter ants out of the woodwork. These are a sign that one needs a carpenter, or more likely a roofer, because carpenter ants require wet, damaged wood to begin making a nest. Although they do no harm to structures the way termites do, no one wants them underfoot. Unfortunately some of the least-welcome pests are active year-round, for example cockroaches and bed bugs. Regardless of their identity, household pests can have us crawling the walls in short order.

However, it is essential to size up the problem before reacting. It is natural to want instant results, but the abject failure of the so-called “war on drugs” should serve to warn us that mere hammering on symptoms leaves us tired and broke, and leaves the problem the same as or worse than before. “Shock and awe” tactics will always be impotent unless we change the environment that gave rise to the situation. Some of the most popular pest-control tools, for example the total-release home foggers (TRFs) or “bug bombs,” have been proven utterly worthless, while humble methods such as targeted baits are extremely effective.

The first order of business is to identify the pest. Centipedes, millipedes, cluster flies, and daddy-longlegs are equally unwelcome housemates, but require very different controls. Your local Cornell Cooperative Extension office can help you identify a pest if you email them a few clear photos. The next step is to ask the intruder what it is doing in your house. Part of the ID process is learning what this thing does for a living, why it is in your space, and how it likely got there.

Boxelder bugs, for instance, live on maple sap, and overwinter as adults under tree bark or, unfortunately, vinyl or wood siding. In spring they want nothing more than to leave your premises so they can find a boxelder or other species of maple on which to mate and lay eggs. No amount of home insecticide will provide control for these as they dribble out of their hiding spots over the course of a few weeks. Insecticides are nerve toxins, and even small amounts have been implicated in exacerbating ADHD, depression, and other mood disorders. These products should be used only when it makes sense to do so.

Boxelder bug adult.

The solution to boxelder bugs, Asian lady-beetles, cluster flies and other shelter-seeking bugs is neither flashy nor toxic, and for that reason is often dismissed. Investing in a case of good caulk, a few cans of spray insulation, and maybe some new screen can cure most such infestations for years at a time. Plus, most households will recover that cost the first winter in fuel savings.

Millipedes, carpenter ants and sow bugs enter homes following a moisture gradient. They will return over and over unless water issues are addressed. Treating carpenter ants with a broad-spectrum insecticide may provide the satisfaction of seeing a bunch of dead ants the next day, but the ant factory (i.e. the queen) will crank out babies for the whole season, requiring multiple applications. A nontoxic and dirt-cheap bait made from boric acid powder and sugar-water will wipe out the queen, but takes a couple of weeks. We need to choose between useless shock-and-awe, and quiet effectiveness.

Carpenter ant.

In an article published on January 28, 2019 in the journal BMC Public Health, North Carolina State University researchers found that the German cockroach population in 30 homes did not change after a month of repeated “bombing” with total-release foggers. But the level of toxic pesticide residue in those residences increased an average of 603 times of baseline. In homes where gel baits were used, though, cockroach populations fell 90%, and pesticide residues in the living space dropped. Lead author Zachary C. DeVries states “The high risks of pesticide exposure associated with TRFs combined with their ineffectiveness in controlling German cockroach infestations call into question their utility in the marketplace.”

Fogging or bombing every insect we see indoors may have some cathartic appeal, but it is a dangerous and expensive exercise which will not fix what is bugging us. For more information on pest control that makes sense, visit the NYS Integrated Pest Management website at https://nysipm.cornell.edu/whats-bugging-you/ or contact your local Cornell Cooperative Extension office.

Julie Carroll received her Excellence in IPM award March 1, 2019, at the Business, Enology, and Viticulture meeting, New York’s annual conference for the grape and wine industry. She is with Jennifer Grant, NYSIPM Director, and Tim Weigle, NYSIPM Grape and Hops IPM Extension Educator.

CONGRATULATIONS TO Dr. Juliet Carroll, Fruit IPM Specialist.

Vital. Invaluable. These are words used to describe Julie Carroll’s IPM contributions by her colleagues. Carroll spearheaded the expansion of NEWA, a website and network which allows growers to understand how the weather will affect fungal and insect pests, and takes the guess work out of their pest management strategy. Carroll ran NEWA for over a decade. Timothy Weigle credits NEWA’s growth in not only weather stations, but also the number of states participating, to Julie’s guidance. Under her leadership NEWA went from 45 weather stations in New York State to over 500 in 12 states. He notes further that her work on improving the user experience with the grape disease and grape berry moth models on NEWA, along with Wayne Wilcox and Greg Loeb, had an enormous impact on the implementation of grape IPM in New York.

Carroll also led the development of Trac software. Introduced in the early 2000s, the software simplified and digitized pesticide recordkeeping for large and small growers and processors alike. It allows farmers to input the information once, and generate customized reports for different processors. The software also includes reference to “IPM Elements” for grapes and other crops—a tool that helps growers assess their pest management practices. Grape processors across the state, including Constellation Brands, use TracGrape’s reports for their pesticide reporting requirements. Carroll built Trac software for five fruit crops, and partnered with a colleague to create TracTurfgrass for golf, lawns, sports fields and sod farms.

Luke Haggerty, of Constellation Brands, calls Carroll’s TracGrape software “a true breakthrough” in record keeping. As a Grower Relations rep for Constellation, he relies on information provided by NEWA: “Julie has always been very proactive in developing and delivering the products needed for our growers to produce grapes in an environmentally and economically sustainable way.”

Julie Carroll inspecting hops

Tim Martinson, Cornell Cooperative Extension Viticulture specialist, noted, “IPM is built on information and decision-making tools. Juliet has built TracGrape and NEWA into useful, practical tools for growers.”

Dr. Carroll also co-edited Organic Production and IPM Guides for grapes and several berry crops, and has regularly presented at Lake Erie Regional Grape Growers’ conferences and Coffee Pot meetings. She has conducted research on devastating pests such as the Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD)—investigating whether hungry hummingbirds can provide meaningful control. Dr. Carroll has also chaired the Northeast IPM SWD working groups for the last decade, bringing research scientists, growers, industry reps, and extension educators from across the region together to help find solutions. Carroll has also helped fruit growers with bird management. Tim Weigle noted that her bird-scaring tactics have saved everyone a lot of money and are more popular than the traditional neighbor-alienating air cannon.

Here’s the latest on Spotted Lanternfly from Ryan Parker, Extension Aide at NYSIPM.

Adult Spotted Lanternfly, Photo Tim Weigle, NYSIPM

Concern over the invasive and destructive spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) (SLF) generated many online resources by states researching new and active populations. Thought to have arrived in Berks County, PA, in 2012, this showy planthopper attacks more than seventy species of plants in the United States. New York State’s primary concern is outreach, monitoring, and proactively approving 2ee pesticide labels for control. Because live adults and nymphs (and egg masses) hitchhike from states with known populations, New York State has an external quarantine.

An external quarantine is a restriction of specific items that facilitate ‘hitchhiking’. In other words, if you’re traveling back from a state with an established population consider that your utility trailer, bicycle, tent canopy, or that swing set you bought in a yard sale might have SLF adults, nymphs, and egg masses tagging along. Any item that has been outside for a while needs to be checked before it crosses the border. Here’s the full list, downloadable, printable.

Download, print and share to reduce the spread of Spotted Lanternfly

In an attempt to educate the public and limit the spread of this pest, New York State Integrated Pest Management (NYSIPM) has teamed up with New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC), United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA APHIS), and New York State Agriculture and Markets (NYSDAM) to create the New York State Spotted Lanternfly Incident Command System (NYS SLF ICS).

Currently, NYSIPM’s primary SLF focus is outreach. We’ve created materials that help identify, monitor, and manage this pest. Along with the public departments listed above, we continue to remind NY residents how to report findings (spottedlanternfly@dec.ny.gov) and we provide educational materials LIKE OUR NEW WEBPAGE. Besides our many resources (Powerpoint presentations, Spark videos, posters, photos and much more), and links to other state or government agency information, you’ll find a regularly updated incidence map showing county-by-county news of SLF sightings and populations across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions.

Coming soon, two Moodle courses from NYSIPM and our Cornell CALS collaborators. One course provides general knowledge about SLF, while the other focuses on Tree of Heaven (Alianthus altissima), one of SLF’s preferred hosts. Both offer pesticide applicator credits.

While visiting our blog, you have also been checking out older posts. Our second most popular post viewed in 2018 was a 2014 post, Identifying Your Pest – with Poop?. There are a lot of budding scatologists out there.

Other IPM Blogs – Besides ThinkIPM, we have more dedicated blogs, and you don’t need to be a specialist to subscribe to them. Here are some of the more popular posts:

Our new Spotted Lanternfly video, Have YOU Spotted Lanternfly Egg Masses was just posted, but it has already reached the number two spot. This invasive insect is getting a lot of attention and we need your help to keep track of it in New York.

So far, the few New York state sightings of SPOTTED LANTERNFLY, a highly invasive and potentially devastating invasive insect, have been linked to their propensity to hitchhike from the quarantined areas in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia.

These discoveries have been adults thought to have traveled on vehicles or shipping materials and resulted in a quick and thorough survey of the area to locate and destroy any chance of additional insects.

This time of year, gravid adult females have probably finished laying eggs and covering them. They aren’t that fussy–they will lay eggs on any inflexible object (preferably tree bark) but it could be your vehicle, utility trailer, firewood, and more.

The responsibility to reduce the chance of infestation in New York state also lies with travelers and shippers. While the DEC does do periodic spot checking along major federal roadways, short of placing a guard station at every entry point, this means a lot of potential influx of this pest. Share the information, learn to recognize these pests and, yes, check for hitchhikers in the form of adults, nymphs and egg masses.

Once the egg mass covering has dried down from white to dull gray or grayish brown, it becomes highly camouflaged on certain surfaces like bark where its cracking mimics the surface.

Ask your friends and relatives coming in for the holidays if they are aware of this pest and refer to the many online sources: